How Can You Maximize With SMS For Educational Industry

Education sector in India is one of the proudest industries among all, which has been giving excellent scholars over the year, who are making our country proud in the world.

Whether it is school education, College and Universities education or other institutional education, India has seen a drastic turnover in this sector and reached to the highest level providing all great minds to the rest of the world.

Look at some interesting facts about Indian Education Industry

– Education system in India is one of the largest in the world with over 1.5 million schools and approx. 37000 higher educational institutes, where more than 230 million students are taking education.

– FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in Indian educational system has reached to US$ 1256 million.

– India is the second largest e-learning market in the world after the US. Country’s e-learning market has reached to US$ 40 billion this year.

– The high education sector is the biggest in the world with maximum enrollments of around 80 million.

– Kerala becomes the very first state of the country to achieve 100% primary education in 2016.

With the induction of technology in education, it has now become very important to use this technology for communication and dissemination of information. Today, when everyone is connected through smartphones, so it seems that SMS is the best way in the education industry for improving communication.

How Education Industry Takes Advantage From SMS Services

1. Attendance Reports

A primary concern parents hold for their kids, no matter how old their kids are, is if they are where they claim to be.Getting out of the house and not reaching school is an age-old, bunking truth in our generation.
So the least you can do is, just filter out the no. of students who aren’t in a specific class, and SMS it to their parents. Something as simple as “Your Ward Mr/Miss xxx, Roll no: – xx hasn’t attended classes today.“You can even skip the name and just a simple SMS with the roll no. will do the trick. This goes on to speak about the responsibility and professionalism your institute holds.

2. Critical Information

There might be situations when the student might be facing a situation which is unavoidable. Might be health issues, classroom trouble or anything else.

Basically, anything that the parents should know about can be texted to them, and this again boosts their trust in your institute and not just that, even as a moral responsibility it’s the right thing to do.

3. Notices

This is what mostly SMS services in the Education sector is used for notices to parents have been around since schools and colleges came up.

Well instead of pasting a paper notice on the notice-board which no one might ever read, the smart thing to do here can be to simply send the notice to parents as well as the students via Bulk SMS.

It not only eliminates the extra stress of the people checking up the notice board everyday but also saves paper!

4. Homeworks

What’s the best way to ensure that students complete their homework? Letting their parents know what the homework is. In the ancient times, “Diaries” were used.

Well, it’s 2017, diaries aren’t exactly in fashion, are they? So an SMS to the parents of the students’ for the whole class is the best way to go about it.

The homework tends to be similar for the entire class, hence sending Bulk SMS to the parents for the class makes sure each parent receives the assignment.

5. Fee Notifications

It doesn’t feel right to walk up to a student or his/her guardian and say “Your fee is due, make sure you pay it.“ It’s just not professional. But well an SMS surely does.

A text saying “Fee for your ward, for the month of X is due; please clear the amount before xx/xx/xxx,“ is good enough.

6. Student Performance Reports

If it’s an educational institute, something like a school/dance academy or something, it’s a good move to send over the performance report of the student to their parents via SMS.

This way you ensure that the report reaches the parents, and also that the reports aren’t doctored before reaching the guardians.

7. The announcement of Results

Most institutes are bound to have a “result” regarding various examinations, competitions and or talent shows. Sharing those results via SMS to the winners via SMS is another use you can make of bulk SMS.

8. Feedback Gathering

SMS is cheap, even for those who aren’t on an SMS service. So sending out a simple text with something like “Rate us on 1/10”, or maybe “Do you agree, YES/NO” can do the trick for you.

Most people would reply if they’re personally connected to your institute, and you’d get their feedback without the involvement of any mass gathering, lots of paper or hassled environment.

9. For Conducting Surveys

Today text message has become the biggest tool highly popular in the schools. School management can conduct surveys to participate and share their experiences about their experiences of the campus activities, programs, their entire experience and if anything they want to be implemented on the school campus.

Schools can also take feedbacks from the students and apply them for the betterment of the students.

10. Internal Communications

Besides students and parents, SMS marketing is also beneficial for internal communications. This is the quickest, cost effective and efficient way for the internal staff such as principals, teachers, admins and other staff professionals to get into the loop for any necessary notifications.

Unlike social media or any other digital platforms, you don’t need even internet to stay connected. You just need a basic mobile phone with SMS functionality.

11. Hosting Events

If your college or school is hosting any event, in that case, it’s convenient to let all the attendees know the time and venue of the event via SMS.

Paper invitations get misplaced and are a burden to carry around, but the digital invite can be carried along with the cell phone without any extra problems.

12. Holiday Notifications

There might be situations when you might be forced to have a holiday the next day. It might be the weather, political issues, or something local.

Anyway, instead of the students wasting their time and energy having to come to school to get notified, can be made aware of the situation over a text as well. It speaks of your responsibility and professionalism as an organization.

13. Personal Wishes

A college or university has students, and students have birthdays, and their parents have anniversaries (if you’re willing to go the extra mile!)

Anyway sending personalized “Happy Birthday” wishes to them surely would help cheer them up as well add as a branding factor towards your institution.

Conclusion

So, Have you admired by these methods of using SMS for the education industry? These are just a few out of many ways to target students through SMS. We can’t include all of them but these are best out of them and will help you out in better communication.

Danish Wadhwa is a Growth Hacker & Entrepreneur who loves building amazing products and services that scale. With his experienced approach, he wants to automate SMS Communications building apps and tools.